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One of the first arguments used to support the Jesus myth theory is that none of the contemporaries of Jesus Christ confirm the resurrection or wrote about Jesus. They will assert and hypothesize that the historical sources are secondary at best. Their argument will then go on to state that St. Paul was a contemporary of the Apostles, but not of Jesus Christ, and that he only encountered the risen Christ in a vision. This line of reasoning is flawed at best. St. Paul was a bright young Phariseewho studied at the temple in Jerusalem under one of the best known and most prominent Pharisees, Gamaliel. It is extremely unlikely that St. Paul did not Debate with Jesus during his earthly ministry. We know Paul’s history, because it was recorded in Acts, which is almost indisputably attributed to St. Luke, a Gentile physician and companion of St. Paul. Further proof that Paul was likely a contemporary of Jesus Christ is that St. Luke, the same companion of St. Paul who penned Acts, also penned the Gospel of Luke. St. Luke records Jesus’ encounters with the Pharisees; encounters never contradicted or corrected by St. Paul in any of his epistles. The weight of evidence supports that St. Paul was in fact a contemporary of Jesus Christ during his earthly ministry.

The Mythicist might also argue that the historical evidence is invalid. This argument starts with a presupposition based on reasoning that no credible historian would dare assert in scholarly circles. The fact of the matter is, Jesus is probably the most well established figure in the history of mankind. Just using the Epistles of St. Paul, most of which are indisputably attributed to him, as well as the Book of Acts, as compared to other accepted historical writings, the documentation for Jesus as a real historical figure is far more reliable than just about every other accepted historical work. Some examples of sources that are referenced by modern historians are Caesar's "Gallic Wars" (10 Greek manuscripts, the earliest known is more than 900 years after the original), the "Annals" of Tacitus (2 manuscripts, the earliest known is more than 900 years after the original), Livy (20 manuscripts, the earliest known is more than 300 years after than the original). While the Mythicist are positing that the New Testament is not a good historical source, they will have to forget Alexander the Great, Socrates, Plato and many other historical figures as well. The uncomfortable fact for the Mythicist is that the Pauline Epistles are attributed directly to a man who lived, ate, and worked with the Apostles. They are a better source than any of the above documents. His life overlapped that of Christ, and the bulk of the evidence weighs towards him having met Christ given his occupation as a Pharisee living in the temple in Jerusalem during the earthly ministry of Jesus.

Then there is the Holy Grail of the Mythicist argument, where it is stated that Jesus is based on Mithraism, an ancient Pagan religion. The claim is that Mithra was born of a Virgin on December 25th, that he had twelve disciples, celebrated the Eucharist, was called the “Messiah”, was crucified then buried in a tomb, and rose again three day’s later along with several other claims. These are some of the most factually inaccurate historical statements ever made. The fact of the matter is that very little is recorded about Mithraism, but there are some things that we do know that has been passed down. Mithra was not born of a Virgin, he was born as a grown man out of Rock. Some traditions claim Mithra was born on December 25th, however no one claims that Jesus was, and given that, this point is irrelevant on every level. The claim that Mithra had twelve disciples is also fallacious; in one story Mithra had a single companion, and in another version two helpers. In fact, nowhere in any of the historical evidence is there any mention of Mithra having twelve disciples. There is one quote where a claim is made that Mithra stated “He who shall not eat of my body nor drink of my blood so that he may be one with me and I with him, shall not be saved” that is supposedly found in the Vatican tomb of St. Peter, however an investigation reveals that no such quote exists. The claim that Mithra was crucified then buried in a tomb and likewise rose from the dead is also false, there is no record of Mithra dying at any point in history. However, the biggest fail in linking Mithraism to Christianity is the fact that most of the source material is dated to well over a century after the New Testament was completed, making it an absolute impossibility that Christianity borrowed from Mithraism. The greatest oddity here however is that the Mythicist will question the validity of the New Testament while at the same time putting forth a secondary source that post-dates the New Testament by over a hundred years as the religion Christianity was based on.
..http://www.examiner.com/article/debunking-the-jesus-mythers

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asic premise ofCaesar’s Messiah is that the Roman Imperial family, the Flavians, invented Jesus by using the Jewish historian Josephus and, presumably, other people to write the gospels after Rome defeated the Jews in 70 AD. The idea was to make the militant Jewish rebels accept a peaceful Messiah and, thereby, give Rome less trouble.

Atwill says that the New Testament was written in a code that requires you to read Josephus’ War of the Jews alongside the New Testament to get the joke. He, of course, is the only person to crack this code, making him super smart.

The following are just some of the major problems with this theory. For footnotes and references to the claims I’m about to make, go to the link in the description or to the website ceasarsmessiahdebunked.com.

One of the biggest problems this theory has is the existence of Christianity before 73 AD, when Atwill says that the idea was concocted by the Romans. Quite simply, if Christianity can be demonstrated to exist before that time, this theory is toast.

The famous historian Tacitus says that Nero was persecuting Christians in Rome in 64 AD. He also mentions that “immense multitudes” of Christians were living in Rome at the time. Try to figure out why “immense multitudes” of Christians are in Rome ten years before Christianity was supposed to have been invented.

Suetonius also mentions Nero punishing Christians, as well as many Christian historians. That seems like a bad PR idea to write this kind of stuff: “Hey, everyone! Join the new religion so we can burn you alive and feed you to lions. The signup sheet is right over there.”

Paul, who tradition has being killed by Nero around 66 AD, wrote thirteen of the letters in the New Testament, all of them very Christian. Even the most skeptical scholars in this field don’t date these letters later than 68 AD, and most of them much earlier than that. You should find out why even these skeptical scholars feel the need to place these letters so early, which you can do at the websitecaesarsmessiahdebunked.com.

Okay, so, let’s move beyond the historical problems with saying that Christianity didn’t exist before 73 AD, and let’s look at some of the common sense or logical problems with his theory.

Why in the world would the Romans do this? They had already totally crushed the Jews in 70 AD, destroying the city and the temple.

When the Romans had a problem with people not wanting to conform to their rules, which they did often, they did what they do best: crush people into submission with war...

D.M. Murdock - also known as "Acharya S" - is an opinionated pantheist who likes to describe herself as an "expert" on religion, mythology and spiritual traditions - aiming most of her venom against Christianity.

Murdock has spawned such sites asTruth Be Known and some viper pit blogs, including Christ Conspiracy that attracts a rag-tag mixture of atheists, pantheists, conspiracy theorists and a subset of humanity who apparently have nothing better to do than to sit around spewing hate-filled diatribes against believers in God.

These days, Murdock is also on Facebook under DM Murdock, where she seems to spend much of her time ranting against Islam. And, of course, she continues to do what she has done for many years, which is to viciously attack others for their beliefs, and then run and hide among her followers to whine about how mean everyone is to her.

The Refiner's Fire used to feature an entire series of challenges against her, but we removed them because it was a waste of time and space, since others have amply disproved her nonsensical, filthy, cussword-riddled rantings. She has proven time and time again that she is just another lost person who knows absolutely nothing about God and the Bible. There is no reasoning with someone like her. Plus, she seems ENJOY the arguments....

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In the 2008 documentary film Religulous (whose name is a combination of religion and ridiculous), erstwhile comedian and political commentator Bill Maher confronts an unprepared Christian with this claim. Here is part of their interaction.

Bill Maher: But the Jesus story wasn’t original.Christian man: How so?Maher: Written in 1280 B.C., the Book of the Dead describes a God, Horus. Horus is the son of the god Osiris, born to a virgin mother. He was baptized in a river by Anup the Baptizer who was later beheaded. Like Jesus, Horus was tempted while alone in the desert, healed the sick, the blind, cast out demons, and walked on water. He raised Asar from the dead. “Asar” translates to “Lazarus.” Oh, yeah, he also had twelve disciples. Yes, Horus was crucified first, and after three days, two women announced Horus, the savior of humanity, had been resurrected.

Maher is only repeating things that are and believed by many people today. Similar claims are made in movies such as Zeitgeist and Religulousand in pseudo-academic books such as Christ in Egypt: The Jesus-Horus Connection and Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth.

Often Christians are not prepared for this type of encounter, and some are even swayed by this line of argumentation. Maher’s tirade provides a good summary of the claims, so let’s deconstruct it, one line at a time.

Written in 1280 BC, the Book of the Deaddescribes a God, Horus.
In fact, there are many “books of the dead.” But there is no single, official Book of the Dead. The books are collections of ancient Egyptian spells that were believed to help the deceased on their journey to the afterlife. The title Book of the Deadcomes from an Arabic label referring to the fact that the books were mostly found with mummies (cf. The Oxford Guide to Egyptian Mythology, “Funerary Literature”). Some of these texts contain vignettes depicting the god Horus, but they don’t tell us much about him.

Our information about Horus comes from a variety of archaeological sources. What we do know from the most recent scholarship on the subject is that there were many variations of the story, each of them popularized at different times and places throughout the 5,000-year span of ancient Egyptian history. Egyptologists recognize the possibility that these differences may have been understood as aspects or facets of the same divine persona, but they nevertheless refer to them as distinct Horus-gods (cf. The Oxford Guide to Egyptian Mythology, “Horus”).

Part of the problem with the “Jesus is Horus” claim is that in order to find items that even partially fit the life story of Jesus, advocates of the view must cherry-pick bits of myth from different epochs of Egyptian history. This is possible today because modern archaeology has given us extensive knowledge of Egypt’s religious beliefs and how they changed over time, making it possible to cite one detail from this version of a story and another from that.

But the early Christians, even if they had wanted to base the Gospels on the Horus myths, would have had no way to do so. They might have known what was believed about Horus in the Egypt of their day, but they would have had no access to the endless variations of the stories that laid buried in the sands until archaeologists started digging them up in the 1800s.

Another part of the problem is that the claimed parallels between Jesus and Horus contain half-truths, distortions, and flat-out falsehoods. For example . . .

However, Mona Lisa is a young Florentine woman who in 1495 married the well-known figure, Francesco del Giocondo, and thus came to be known as ``La Gioconda'‘. This is confirmed by the discovery of documentation in Florence, Italy archives. She had five children and two became nuns.

ØBrown’s Error: Sir Isaac Newton was a secret “Goddess Worshipper”. Yet it is well known that he was a devout Christian …who wrote a commentary on the book of Danieland Revelation and calculated the physical return of Christ between the years 2000 and 2050

ØBrown’s Error: The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950’s and included the Gospels. History clearly show that these scrolls were found in 1948 and there were no Gospels found there.

ØBrown’s Error: The Gnostic Gospel, The Gospel of Philip was not written in Aramaic as the Da Vinci Code implies but in Coptic, translated from Greek. (Page 246)

2. “The Priority of Sion” and the “Les Dossier Secret “

The Priory of Sion”—a European secret society founded in 1099? (Fact Page)

nFirst one was founded in Jerusalemabout 1100 ceased to exit in 1617, absorbed by the Jesuits.

nNamed after a nearby mountain inGeneva, with the purpose of defending low cost housing

nDissolved in 1957 but Plantard held on the name and started the 2nd “Priory of Sion” in early 1960’s, he became obsessed with idea of being an occult master and a descendant of kings.

n1960’s and 1970’s Plantard created forged documents proving the bloodline from Mary Magdalene, making himself a descendent of Mary Magdalene…and the Kings of France.

Priory of Sion

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The first point we need to address, is the very foundation of this book, the claim of fact on “Fact” page. The book claims too very important facts. These two facts are the basis behind the whole book. They are the very foundation this book is built upon.

First the existence of this secret organization known as the Priory of Sion, an organization dating back to the year 1099 entrusted with keeping the documents about Jesus’ preserved to be released at a later date.

Secondly, the discovery of Les Dossier Secret parchments in 1975 at the Bibliotheque Nationale. These documents detail the membership in the Priory of Sion identifying Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton and others. They are the Grandmasters involved in preserving these secret documents.

Dan Brown relies on a 1982 publication, Holy Blood, Holy Grail as the source of information on the Priory of Sion. The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail depended on documents provided to them by Pierre Plantard, an anti-Semitic Frenchman who was jailed for fraud in 1953. Plantard and three other men started a small social club in 1954 called the Priory of Sion, taking the name from a nearby mountain. Their club dissolved in 1957, but Plantard held on to the name. He started a second Priory of Sion in the early 1960’s and tried to establish himself as the King of France.

Throughout the 1960’s and the 1970’s Plantard created a series of documents “proving” the existence of a bloodline descending from Mary Magdalene, through the kings of France, down to the present day to include ---(surprise!) Pierre Plantard. He began using the name Plantard de Saint-Clair, saying the Saint-Clairs were direct descendents of the line of Jesus and Mary.

The Christ Conspiracy
By "yinnon2" - August 14, 2002
I read "The Christ Conspiracy", and honestly, I didn't like it. Unfortunately (or fortunately, perhaps), I don't think either the book or its author lived up to the claims. The book raised a number of points I take issue with, and so in the interest of those who may wonder whether Acharya S is a credible scholar and writer, I'll take a moment to comment on a few passages from the book.

On p. ii of the preface, the reader is informed that the author has a "working knowledge" of more than six different languages, and has read everything from Euripides to the Bible in their original languages. In fact, we're told that, as a result of her knowledge of Biblical Greek and Hebrew, the author has acquired an understanding of the Scriptures that exceeds even "most clergy". This is of particular interest in light of her discourse on p. 91 concerning the Hebrew term "Elohim" (translated God, gods, or sometimes judges in English versions).
The author attempted to effectively convince the reader that Biblical scholars mistranslate the term as "God", when it should only refer to gods, as it is plural in the Hebrew. This, it's added, is why we find Elohim, or "the gods", saying in Genesis 1:26: "Let us make man in our image." One source is even quoted as saying that translators "always singularized the plurals to conceal the fact that Jews worshipped multiple gods."
Now, the author did correctly point out that this word is in the plural form, but mistakenly added that its singular form is "El". As it is, the singular for Elohim is "Eloah", and the plural for El is "Elim" (Synonyms of the Old Testament, R. Girdlestone, p. 31). Also, in almost every case where Elohim, the God of Israel, is the subject of a particular verse, the corresponding verb is in the singular (indicating that the subject is to be understood likewise). For example, Genesis 1:1 says, "In the beginning Elohim created (in the singular) the heavens and the earth." (Add to this that in the verse that follows we find: "and the Spirit [in the singular] of Elohim, etc." Are we to understand that a plurality of gods have but one spirit?) Also, in reference to the passage where God (not "the gods") says "Let us make man in our image", the verse that follows, v. 27, reads: "So Elohim created (in the singular) man in his own image, etc." At any rate, the reason why both Jewish and Christian scholars have always translated Elohim to the English "God" (in most contexts) is because it usually refers to a single being in the Hebrew.

Later, Acharya stated that the Greek word Christ (or Christos), as applied to Jesus, was taken from the Hindu religion and the Hindi word "Krishna" (one of the Hindu gods). The author even sometimes altered the spelling of Krishna, such as Christna or Cristna, in order to further emphasize the relation. On p. 256 we find: "As noted, in Greek Krishna is also Christos, and the word `Christ' also comes from the Hindi word `Kris'"
First, it's worth pointing out that a literal transliteration of the Sanskrit would actually be "Krsna" (with the three little dots below the r, s, and n); there's no "t" in the Sanskrit word. (And the "i" and "h" are typically added just to aid in proper English pronunciation). Now second, and more importantly, the ordinary meaning of the word Krishna is "black". Christ, on the other hand, is a Greek translation of the Hebrew "Messiah". The meaning of both is simply "anointed one". Thus, there is no etymological relationship between the words Krishna and Christ, and therefore, Krishna is not Christ in Greek.

On pages 107-25 the author listed a number of supposed correspondences between pagan gods, such as Krishna, and Jesus. On p. 116, it's stated that Krishna, like Jesus, was born from a virgin-namely, his mother Devaki-on December 25th. According to the story found in the Indian scriptures, though, particularly the Mahabharata, Krishna was the eighth child of his mother, born on the 8th of the Hindu month Shravan (which corresponds to our August/September).

The author noted that Krishna's "beloved disciple" was named Arjuna, or "John". Of course, this seems to be another obvious parallel between Krishna and Jesus. However, once again, neither word (Arjuna or John) is related to the other. The Sanskrit name Arjuna means, "White". John, however, comes from the Hebrew "Yochanan"-meaning, "Yahweh is gracious".

On p. 257 of the book we find the assertion that the compound name Jesus Christ "appeared in no writings before [AD 325]." On the contrary, though, the name Jesus Christ (or Christ Jesus) is found 226 times in the New Testament, all of which was written well before AD 325. Also, the standard edition of the ante-Nicene writings that we have today, which consists of 10 volumes, contains numerous references to "Jesus Christ"; far too many for me to attempt a complete count. However, I did find that in Polycarp's short letter to the church in Phillipi (ca. AD 150), the name is present 11 times. Likewise, the name is found 26 times in Ignatius' relatively brief epistle to Ephesus (ca. AD 107).

Finally, on p. 51, the author dismissed a letter by Pliny the Younger (ca. AD 112) which is often mentioned by Christian apologists in reference to Christ's historical existence. She essentially said that the letter is of no value whatsoever, as it contains only a single word of any interest-"Christians". However, in Pliny's letter we actually find, "[The Christian apostates] reviled the name of Christ They all worshipped [Emperor Trajan's] statue uttering imprecations at the same time against the name of Christ." And that the Christians themselves "addressed a form of prayer to Christ, as to a divinity"(Epistle 97, Letters and Treatises of Cicero and Pliny, p. 424). Thus, there is more to the letter than just a single appearance of the word "Christian".

Wheless, "Forgery in Christianity" - Checking the quotes
Part 1 : The Introduction

This sort of page is something I would rather not do. Even the worst author may set someone on the path towards the light of knowledge. However I find that a great many people presume that Wheless can be relied on for quotations from the Fathers. Many of these quotes are somewhat strange. It seemed to me, therefore, a good idea to test the accuracy of them.

In 1930 an American attorney named Joseph Wheless published a book with the title "Forgery in Christianity: ...". The book is online here. The purpose of the book was to provide a reference collection of embarassing quotations from Christian authors, and particularly the fathers:.....

....The criteria I propose to use are these:

Is the reference correct?

Is the citation verbally accurate?

Does the citation fairly represent the views of the author as expressed in that document? (i.e. has the citation been made selectively to distort the quotation, or does it include all relevant words/phrases/qualifications?)

For a man intent on documentary proof of fraud, there is a significant level of error at even the basic level of accurate citation. 28% of the references are wrong or unavailable; 28% are inaccurate or can't be checked; and only 24% of the quotes correctly represent the author's views! Of course these figures are only a guide. Much real information is included, although heavily slanted. Nevertheless we have seen a significant level of misinformation in Wheless' account, and in some cases deliberate misrepresentation would seem to be a possibility.

More on Earl Doherty's "Jesus Puzzle" On the Fringe[Dates of the Gospels and Acts] [Paul's Corinthian Opponents] [Apollos...and Paul, Opponents?] [On "paralambano"] [2 Peter]
Hippocrates is reported to have remarked to the effect that desperate situations require desperate measures. In a similar vein, in order to maintain his thesis that Jesus did not exist, Earl Doherty is required to adopt an inordinate number of other fringe-level theses. Our purpose in this essay is to look at some of these.

Gospel and Acts Dates

Our first issue is one that we have already covered here - the dates of the Gospels. Doherty covers much of the same ground we have answered elsewhere: The usual litanies regarding the supposed geographic errors of Mark, for example. Because of this, our treatment on this topic will be brief.

What is Doherty's basic premise here? Of the gospels, he argues, "there is no good reason to date any of them before the very late first century..." and Acts is relegated to the middle of the second century. Now he admits that this is a non-consensus position, of course, and that "All 4 Gospels have generally been placed within the period 65 or 70-100, with Acts somewhere in the middle of that span." However, as that dating tends to dampen the idea of a Christ-myth somewhat, he must reject the consensus, just so:

My own preferred dating is to see Mark no earlier than perhaps 90, with the others following by 125, and Acts not appearing until around 150, perhaps even a little later. This, of course, refers to the earliest versions of the Gospels, which did not enjoy any notable circulation at first, and which were not finalized in any canonical form until after Justin.

This is offered little in the way of argumentative support; rather, Doherty is content to rely mostly on authority for this position, which rather sidesteps an independent evaluation of a matter which ought to be crucial to his Christ-myth theory....
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Zeitgeist On The Jesus/Joseph Parallels
In the movie "Zeitgeist", Peter Joseph says, "In the Old Testament there's the story of Joseph. Joseph was a prototype for Jesus. Joseph was born of a miracle birth, Jesus was born of a miracle birth. Joseph was of 12 brothers, Jesus had 12 disciples. Joseph was sold for 20 pieces of silver, Jesus was sold for 30 pieces of silver. Brother "Judah" suggests the sale of Joseph, disciple "Judas" suggests the sale of Jesus. Joseph began his work at the age of 30, Jesus began his work at the age of 30. The parallels go on and on."

Joseph was not born of a miracle birth. His father, Jacob, was probably in his seventies when he conceived Joseph, but there's nothing "miraculous" about that. Celebrities like Rupert Murdoch, Charlie Chaplin, Anthony Quinn and Saul Bellow bore children well into their seventies and eighties, yet no one would call any of those "miracles". In fact, Joseph even had a younger brother.

And notice that he says "Joseph was of 12 brothers, Jesus had 12 disciples". Did you catch it? He's counting Joseph among the brothers, but not counting Jesus among His disciples. In other words, Joseph had 11 brothers, making this "comparison" nonsense.

Also, Judas did not "suggest" the sale of Jesus. Even if this could be called a "sale" (which it really can't), the offer was made by the pharisees, not by Judas.

On top of that, Joseph did not "begin his work at the age of thirty". At the age of thirty, Joseph was promoted to second-in-command over Egypt, but he'd already worked for Potiphar as superintendant of his household, followed by at least two years in prison, where he was in charge of other prisoners. So his "work" had begun at least two years prior to when he turned thirty.

No, the parallels don't "go on and on". In fact, they don't even begin.